“New York is a city like no other. Through the centuries, she’s been embraced and reviled, worshipped and feared, praised and battered—all the while standing at the crossroads of American politics, business, society, and culture. Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author Teresa Carpenter, a lifelong diary enthusiast, scoured the archives of libraries, historical societies, and private estates to assemble here an almost holographic view of this iconic metropolis. Starting on January 1 and traveling day by day through the year, these journal entries are selected from four centuries of writing—from the early 1600s to the present—allowing New York natives and visitors, writers and artists, thinkers and bloggers, to reach across time and share vivid and compelling snapshots of life in the Capital of the World.”

Here’s how I discovered this book:
Oh Twitter, my love grows by the day! I will definitely scout this title at Powell’s sometime this week. Learning and reflecting on history by way of journal entries fascinates me and reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Anais Nin, “we write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” After all, what better way to gain understanding into the past – in this case, a specific city – than through the eyes, minds, and hearts of those who were there?

I know it would be tough to locate as much material on other cities, but it would be so cool to have a book like this for many important locales in one’s life. Portland Diaries… let’s start now, peeps!

I survived my Vega$ maiden voyage! We had a great trip and I’m happy to report that all of my aforementioned goals were met.. and sometimes I question my ambition, pshhh! There were lots of things to love and equally as many things to hate about LV, but I’m going to list my favorites:

1. Open Container Laws: First time in such a magical land. As I wrote to a friend, I had a silly girly drink in my hand whilst perusing racks AT THE MALL. Blew my mind, really.

2. Hotels: Sensory overload in these places! I was so grateful for MissMoa’s knowledge & understanding of where we were at all times because with all senses constantly engaged, my already weak notion of direction was totally shot. You don’t ever have to leave your hotel if you don’t want to & if you do, you can weave in & out of other hotels all the live-long day. Plus, where else will you see a giant sparkly horse sculpture underneath a ceiling of blown glass jellyfish-type figures?!

Normal.

3. Shopping: No surprise here, eh? I loved everything about Vegas shopping, but mostly the surprisingly laid-back attitude in the high-end shops. I am always intimidated to go in such places because I clearly cannot buy anything and generally feel like a ragamuffin among such well-crafted duds, but the salespeople in LV must be used to tourists coming in & out all of the time, and therefore have an accepting attitude. Yay! I got very giddy about seeing some of my favorite print ads giant-sized on walls and “alive” in window displays.

Window at Stella McCartney

Prada stiffy!

My shelf at Assouline

Purse porn at Reed Krakoff

4. Lady time: I love girls! Getting ready together, borrowing clothes & make-up, catching up on jobs and love and everything in between… it makes me so happy and definitely recharged my soul. We are all in such different life stages now but can still find common ground on which to relate- so important to me in maintaining friendships. The only lingering question is… where to next year?????

We did watch the Golden Globes, but meh, I don’t feel like commenting on any of that right now. My faves were: Laura Dern, Tilda Swinton, Kate Winslet, and Michelle Williams. Google at your leisure.

I’m off to glittery-fabulous-decadent LAS VEGA$ in the [early] morning; my first time there outside of the airport and I’m going with my four best lady friends/former college roommates. I suppose there’s no better way to do it up right in Sin City, eh Liberace?

My goals for the weekend, in no particular order: laugh, gamble, catch-up with friends I rarely see, give & get advice, wear lots of jewelry, avoid marriage, see some nudity, eat, drink…. mostly just everything I normally try to do, plus the gambling bit.

#nowplaying Nothin’ but keyboard pecks and falling rain.
Hope this finds you well; not much to report from #6 other than my Gratitude Box project is on day 9 and going strong. I’ll have to pack sheets Jan. 13-16th as I will be out of town this MLK Jr. weekend. Am predicting one line per day will not be enough space to contain all my thanks! I’m also still on my “smile more kick“, although I confess I haven’t been as toothy the past few days. We’re all a work in progress.

Here are a few images that have made my day delightful. All linked to source…enjoy!

Season 5 of Mad Men premieres March 25th: how long until it streams on Netflix?! Le sigh….

My new watch arrived! The words “on vehicle for delivery today” are the online shopper’s equivalent to the excitement felt by others anticipating a date or big game. Needless to say after seeing these words on the UPS tracking email, I rushed home from work to welcome my new acquisition.Tortoise shell is my obsession thus far in 2012; classic and practical but *not yet* overdone/stale like pearls. Whoda thunk that checking your wrist for the time would become sort of antiquated and endearing? I’ve never even owned a fancy watch – one that doubles as a calculator surely does not count – and although I see it more as fashion rather than function [I haven’t even set the time yet!], I know it will be useful to have.

In other news, my never ending intrigue re: relationships, marriage(s), partnerships has been fired up once again by a few articles I’ve read this week. I love discussing the merits of unions vs. the absolute freedom of singledom. My favorite part of such conversations is that no sort of conclusion is ever expected; I don’t think anyone has the answer or correct formula for allowing others into your life and the timeline in which this is all supposed to happen. It’s just fun to hear people’s opinions and I’ve found that most are more than willing to share.

For your reeding & discussing pleasure:

“Alone Again, Naturally” – from the NYT: one woman’s perspective on why men aren’t “okay” being by themselves and women are [play this whilst reeding, would ya?]

“Why Men Need to Cheat” – from HuffPost: men are going to – and maybe even need to – cheat and partners need to accept this and stop viewing infidelity as the ultimate betrayal
*note* this one really got me going!

“Monogamish Couples Share Their Stories“- this week’s Savage Love: beloved Dan shares some real-life instances of partners opening up their relationships.. and making it work. Goes well with the arty above, ya think?

Above all, I remain an eternal optimist when it comes to love. My friend recommended the book A Literate Passion to me after we discovered a shared admiration for the writer Anais Nin. The book is a collection of love letters exchanged between Nin & writer Henry Miller over the course of 20 years. It’s a great one to have around as you can pick right back up where you left off, even if months have passed. The connection – mind, body & spirit – between these two is inspiring and the passionate sentiments are exactly what you’d expect from two very talented wordsmiths. I’ll sign off with a quote from Anais that particularly resonates with me lately:

“There are two ways to reach me- by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: kisses alone don’t work.”